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lioeters 2 minutes ago [-]
Entertaining and educational historical narrative, much of it was new to me. The main idea is that kings of Siam willingly and actively embraced European culture and modernization efforts, unlike other countries in Asia which resisted and implemented them reactively, often by force.
This included imposing unified national language and cultural homogeneity across their territory, with centralized government, laws, administration. The other side of that is the suppression of regional languages and culture, as it happened during European nation-building, with Welsh, Gaelic, Breton, Occitan, Alsatian, German and Italian dialects. Similarly in China, Japan, and elsewhere.
The building of telegraph lines, railways, and schools helped solidify nation state authority. I wonder how that relates to the internet, as a tool of social control and centralizing power.
A way to summarize how Thailand resisted colonization is that it colonized itself, and successfully adapted culturally to the wave of Europeanization and modern global order of nation states.
ahartmetz 14 minutes ago [-]
Always interesting to read how something very difficult was done very well. Understanding the West's true and purported motivations, bending their own culture - choosing what to adopt or not and how - without breaking, ceding some land, and it all working out in the end. Quite remarkable.
There's a lot of stuff there that needs to succeed in several different ways (technical, local population, foreign image) to work, and it did.
nephihaha 10 hours ago [-]
It depends whether one considers Thailand to have been part of informal empire or not, much like the British influence over Portugal, Chile and Argentina.
Either way, Thailand was also a Cold War hold out. It bordered Cambodia, Laos and Burma, and Vietnam by sea, all of which became Communist-run. The west helped prop it up.
There is a whole other argument about Thailand's current relationship with the west, which is complex to say the least.
This included imposing unified national language and cultural homogeneity across their territory, with centralized government, laws, administration. The other side of that is the suppression of regional languages and culture, as it happened during European nation-building, with Welsh, Gaelic, Breton, Occitan, Alsatian, German and Italian dialects. Similarly in China, Japan, and elsewhere.
The building of telegraph lines, railways, and schools helped solidify nation state authority. I wonder how that relates to the internet, as a tool of social control and centralizing power.
A way to summarize how Thailand resisted colonization is that it colonized itself, and successfully adapted culturally to the wave of Europeanization and modern global order of nation states.
There's a lot of stuff there that needs to succeed in several different ways (technical, local population, foreign image) to work, and it did.
Either way, Thailand was also a Cold War hold out. It bordered Cambodia, Laos and Burma, and Vietnam by sea, all of which became Communist-run. The west helped prop it up.
There is a whole other argument about Thailand's current relationship with the west, which is complex to say the least.